With the midpoint of the 2013 season rapidly approaching, one could safely assume that Frank Wren and his staff are in the process of evaluating this team and its' needs. Not necessarily because there are glaring weaknesses that command attention, but because that's what good front offices do.
There has been a normal degree of media speculation about what moves, if any, the Braves can be expected to make with the trade deadline roughly a month away. Most of this talk has centered around the Braves being in the market for a left-handed reliever, a possibility Frank Wren all but confirmed last month to Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal.
The market for relief pitching is still developing, and there's still plenty of time for further maturation. However, the dynamic this year is different than in years' past, due to:
a) Teams on the playoff periphery, that may have otherwise opted to trade relief assets, are hanging onto low-cost/controlled players that may help them earn a wild-card berth.
b) The market for relievers, specifically left-handed relievers, is shaping up to be below-average relative to other years.
The demand for left-handed specialists is always high, and this year should be no different. Coupled with the lack of supply, one can expect to see teams pay a premium to acquire these arms, whether that premium is constituted of money, prospects, or some combination thereof. The lack of high-end talent and contractual considerations should ease the market slightly, but in the end, a litany of overpays will almost certainly prevail.
It is under these inauspicious circumstances that we review what the true needs of this bullpen are. Collectively, the first-half performance has been very comparable to last year's first-half. When averaging the stats of everyone with at least ten appearances (Alex Wood was included because he will get there soon enough), we see that strikeouts are almost identical, BABIP is down (likely attributable to Simmons and other defensive-minded moves that Fredi has made in the late innings), HR rate is down over 50%, and strand-rate and groundball rates aren't different enough to matter.
The real issue with this bullpen right now is walks, the main offenders being Avilan, Carpenter, Gearrin, and Wood, all of whom have a BB% over ten percent. Let's remove Alex Wood so as to avoid outliers and skewness. The three remaining pitchers are walking a batter for every 1.4 batters they strike out. Their WHIP is 1.28, their BABIP is .260, and their xFIP is 4.49. In other words, they've been the beneficiaries of some luck, and while having a good defense behind them can help explain some of that, it won't always be the case.
As it stands right now, Luis Avilan is the top lefty out of the pen. He is an average reliever being asked to come into high-leverage situations and perform at the level of 2011-2012 Jonny Venters and Eric O'Flaherty, and it's just not working. With that being said, in light of the available options, he's probably the best choice for that spot given the current construction of the roster.
Cory Gearrin's situation is different. Right now, he's probably fourth on the depth chart for righties. He has not performed well in high-leverage situations, and to make matters worse, he has struggled in the specialty role many had predicted him to be successful in. Right-handed hitters have a .387 OBP against him this year, and his GB% against righties has dropped from his career average of ~56% to ~45% in 2013. He's not going to be a guy that can come in a shutdown hitters on the both sides of the plate, so to see him struggle in an area that is supposedly his specialty does not bode well for his future with this team.
David Carpenter has seen most of his action in moments of little consequence, but with Gearrin's struggles, that could change. A few weeks ago, he seemed to be the most likely to be sent down once Beachy returned to the rotation, and a starter moved to the pen. That may still be the case, but it isn't as much a sure thing now as it was a few weeks ago.
The return of Beachy should help mitigate these issues. Moving a starter, most likely Kris Medlen, or even putting Beachy himself in the bullpen to start out, will replace one of Gearrin or Carpenter with an arm more capable of productive, beneficial relief appearances. By bumping everyone (except Kimbrel and Walden) down a notch in their roles, Fredi can more effectively manage the strengths of his relievers to the benefit of the team, and if it goes well, acquiring another LHP for the bullpen may become completely unnecessary. With that being said, the longer it takes Beachy to return, the more likely Frank Wren is to look outside the organization for bullpen help.
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